Magnet in your tool arsenal? You should have…

Long story short  – doing a bit of outdoor fettling and I dropped a ball bearing less than 1mm in diameter on the patio. Spent 10 mins on my knees hunting in the cracks (yeah I know!) and running my hands over everything to no avail when I remembered I had a magnet from an old hard drive stuck to something in the shed. What are the chances I thought but what the heck I’ll give it a go…

A few sweeps over all the cracks and 2 mins later I checked the magnet and **** me – the ball bearing was stuck to the bottom of it… saluting all those Magpies has paid off finally….

Any magnet success stories?

Used to have a sort of magnet on a stick, it was telescopic.

Brilliant for every time I dropped a spanner/screwdriver/nut down the engine bay of my old mini but it would inevitable get caught somewhere rather than land on the ground underneath.

I used a telescopic magnet stick the other day to retrieve the posties van keys from the black gung in the drain.

Fished around for a while until I felt a click as the keys were gripped by the magnet.

The postie was quite relieved.

Also useful for helping thread cable through internal frames.

Magnetic tray for all the metal screws n bits too!

Also useful for helping thread cable through internal frames.

Handy with many frames now being carbon or alloy. Steel might be real, but all of these magnet threading kits become useless.

A magnet is a very handy place to store other magnets.

Nice strong narrow magnet is the best way to find wooden studs. Well, the nails or screws in them at any rate.

I’ve been known to magnetise a screw to help locate it on the driver when working in an awkward position.

Any magnet success stories?

Too many to mention,but the best ones were when (yet again) I thought I would work on a bike over the grass,because ,you know,it was only a five minute job.

All praise the God of magnetism.

So yes ,to all that haven’t already got one stuck to a shelf somewhere in your shed/workshop, get an old hard drive one. :)

I’ve never seen the attraction, personally.

Don’t be so negative.

I use ball bearings in thick grease on most of the major M5 and M6 bolts on my commuter to stop people stealing bars, mechs, saddles etc.  The only way to remove the ball bearing is with a decent magnet.

Magnet in my saddlebag, its a long and heavy walk if the speed sensor magnet falls off an e-bike…

I once had a tiny splinter of metal in my eye from angle grinding (not the first and not the last!) and was trying the fish it out in the mirror to no avail. I then remember some very strong molybdinum magnets I had in a drawer and grabbed on and waved it above the surface of my eye, I actually felt the metal shard let go and lo and behold, there itwas on the magnet and my eye felt instant releif. It only worked once though as the next time I had a shard in my eye it was another trip tot he opticians toget it scraped with a hyperdermic needle!

Magneto dog lives on!

I’ve a couple of proper old school magnets, they are godsends. Must be 40 years old now I reckon, probably more.

Lost count of how many times they have saved the day

I’ve used a donut magnet designed for use on internal cardiac defibrillators to fish a police Sargent’s keys out of a street drain. He didn’t think it would work, I was sure it would, I was smug and he was happy.

Similar to @oldnick’s stud-finding tip, I’ve used a magnet to locate fixings when dismantling a plasterboard wall. It is time consuming and fiddly but *much* less mess-producing to take down a wall like this rather than just whacking it with a hammer.

in the old days in the oil patch, when we looked at paper seismic sections, we stuck them to metal walls with strong magnets. They make perfect fridge magnets for fixing shopping lists, photos etc, once liberated from their original owners.

A word of warning:

I once dropped an M6 nut in the engine bay of a car I was working on. I searched thoroughly but couldn’t find it. The spark plugs had been removed prior to this and the holes were open to the world – I therefore concluded that the nut had fallen through one of the sprark plug holes into the cylinder.

No problem I thought – I had one of those three fingered grabber tools for retrieving out of reach things. I put a small magnet into the fingers, inserted the tool and magnet through a spark plug hole and started fishing around.

Much to my surprise (not now) the magnet fell out of the fingers (probably helped by sticking to the steel cylinder wall) leaving me with no option but to remove the cylinder head.

I never did find the nut.

My old kombi broke down coming off the ferry in St Malo and we were recovered to a local campsite.  Eventually found a vintage VW mechanic who came out to replace the points.  Just as we were in the home straight he dropped an essential bit into the depths of the engine bay never to be seen again.  That was until the ex wife returned from the boules pitch with a  borrowed boulers magnet and fished out the missing piece.  We were back up and running and able to get home under our own steam.

Yesterday I learnt that having a magnet in the toolbox is a must-have. Replacing the suspension on my Merc, took the three bolts off which secure the top mount and one of them disappears into the engine bay and is sat on a ledge where I can see it but not a hope in hell reach it with my hands. Got some magentised long screwdrivers so tried those but it was a fair chunky bolt so the slightest wiggle meant it dropped off.

A cunning plan formed and a quick shout into the house and mini-DBW #00000000001 appears with a garden cane with a Lego train magnet coupling attached to the end of it with what looked like a whole roll of tape. 10 seconds late the bolt is in my hand (and a reminder that I need to order an extending magnet thing off Amazon today!).

Hiya,

I also sail or be it not much lately, however in the past I had cause to need one of these:

https://www.seamarknunn.com/acatalog/Nauticalia-Sea-Searcher-Recovery-Magnet-NT3101.html?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvYLT9OmjiAMVojnUAR14YSwlEAQYASABEgIsJPD_BwE

Every workshop should have one! LoL! It has fished out all manner of things over the years from sea, ponds, cycle frames and cars/vans…

JeZ

Magnetic tray for all the metal screws n bits too!

Many moons ago Christians was approaching and one of the things I was expecting I was going to have to treat myself in the sales to was a new TV as weird colourful smear was developing in the bottom right had side of the screen and steadily growing by the hour.

Come the Christmas Day I get to open the little pile of presents that had been slowly amassing .. by the TV …. and I open a really quite powerfully magnetic tool tray that my GF had bought me. Slowly over the next few days the TV returned to normal :-)

I use ball bearings in thick grease on most of the major M5 and M6 bolts on my commuter to stop people stealing bars, mechs, saddles etc.  The only way to remove the ball bearing is with a decent magnet.

That’s a very clever idea, going to use this, thanks

I got some spanky carbon wheels for my ebike recently, fitted in a hurry the night before a ride and forgot to fit the magnet on the rotor. Discovered my error at the trailhead. Used the magnet from my camelbak ziptied to the rotor. It actually worked